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ABRAHAM LINCOLN. 



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Essay on Abraham Lincoln, which appears in this holiday number of the Gleaner, has been, 
ted by Col. Hicks, formerly of the United States, but now a citizen of Jamaica. He writes from, 
recollection of President Lincoln, and of the political and military struggle between ths 
nd Souh, in which he bore a part." — From the Kingston, Jamaica, Gleaner, January 1,1879. 



PRINTED BY THE EDUCATIONAL SUPPLY COMPANY, 
KINGSTON, JAMAICA. 



Hbrabam Xincoln. 



[Note.— For the facts stated in the following Essay, beyond what is matter of personal recoil! 
I am indebted to the following authorities: Story on the Constitution, Young's American 
Statesman, Mrs. Stowe's Men of our Time, and American Diplomatic 
Correspondence, 1865.] 

Qince the time of Washington and proposed by Mr. Jefferson, of Virginia 
O Franklin there has arisen no Araer- to exclude slavery forever from these 

be numbered ^"itories, was passed, having res-eived 



ican so fully entitled to 
with them in the list of the 
great worthies as 
His is a name, not 
all time," — not for 
all peoples ; and it 
memory and review his work, and con- 
sider those distinctive traits of charac- 
ter which made him the great man he 
was. 
A man really is what he is ; we can 



world's 
Abraham Lincoln. 

for " an age but for 
one nation but for 

is well to recall his 



the entire southern vote. Soon after 
this the Constitution was adopted, to 
form "a more perfect union," and this 
Constitution contained a provision for 
the suppression of the African Slave. 
trade. Through the action of their 
several State Legislatures the northern 
states were, in time, freed from slavery ; 
and it was the general hope and expec- 
tation, entertained by the best and 



liiow him, chiefly, by what he does, and mos J eminent men of the South as well 

as of the North, that all the states 



his manner of doing it. What Lincoln 
had to do was the righting of a great 
wrong — the saving of a great nation by 
the removal of a great evil that was de- 
stroying the nation. To understand 
his work it is necessary to understand 
the nature of this evil, the conditions 
of its existence, and the difficulties at- 
tending its removal. The brief histori- 
cal outline which follows will, there- 
fore, be of use. I can vouch for it as 
correct in the general, though manv 



would, by gradual steps, and without 
protracted delay, become wholly free. 
In the churches, at that time, slavery 
was generally tolerated only as a rec- 
ognized evil, which must be put away. 

But man's love of dominion over his 
fellow-man grows with its exercise; 
and the South made little effort to get 
rid o? its " peculiar institution," while 
its disposition to do so grew less and 
less as the years went on. Then came 



minor and qualifying particulars are of Whitney's invention of the cotton- 
gin, opening to the South new source* 
of vast wealth by means of slave labour 
- an invention resultingin the increase 
of cotton production from half a million 
pounds to forty million pounds annual- 
ly. A very perceptible change of tone 



necessity omitted. 
SLAVERY 



UNITED 



IN THE 
STATES. 
In 1781 thirteen American colonies 
were united in a "Confederation." In 

every colony, excepting Massachusetts, with regard to slavery was soon n 
slavery existed. Some of these colonies especially in the southern pulpit. Min- 
nad immense territories in the North- isters began to find Biblical authority 
west which they ceded to the general for it, and the people \\m>' notloathto 
government ; and in 1787 the Ordinance accept it as a divine and very benevb* 



lent arrangement. When more terri- 
tory was acquired, the South gained 
the first of many political victories; for 
while slavery was, indeed, prohibited 
north of a certain line, the portion 
south of that line was left without re- 
strictive conditions, and of that the 
slaveholders took possession. It should 
be mentioned here that at an early 
period in the history of the nation South 
Carolina, the most aggressively pro- 
slavery of the southern states, pro- 
claimed the doctrine that each State, 
whenever it deemed its rights violated, 
could, at will, withdraw from the Union, 
and set up an independent government 
of its own. In 1832 South Carolina 
made bold to defy the general govern- 
ment and to treat the national laws as 
"null and void." At that time, how- 
ever, she had only the partial sympathy 
of the South, and her " nullification" 
movement failed. 

Throughout the South there was a 
growing sense of the desirableness of 
slavery, a disposition to justify it rather 
than apologize for its existence, an in- 
tolerance of all local opposition, and an 
increasing irritability at any outside 
criticism, whether emanating from 
New England or Old England. In the 
North there was a marked division of 
public sentiment. The commercial in- 
terests <>f the North were becoming 
more and more closely connected with 
the institution of slavery ; and in com- 
mercial circles the received creed was, 
'■Cotton is King." While many in the 
North had a deepening conviction that 
slavery was iniquitous and dangerous 
to the commonwealth, and were re- 
solved to agitate against it, there was 
also, on the part of a large proportion 
of the ern people, a desire and de- 

termination to suppress all discussion 
of the subject, as needlessly and use- 
lessly irritating to their southern 



brethren.* The agitation however, was 
not suppressed and was intensest in the 
churches, resulting in dividing asunder 
the leading church organizations — 
each having its northern and southern 
section. 

Meantime, the overflow of the popu- 
lations of Europe was pouring into 
America, and the young nation, which 
Burke declared to be "still in the 
gristle, and not yet hardened into the 
bones of manhood," was making mar- 
vellous and unprecedented growth, — 
very much greater, however, in the 
North than in the South. At this time 
the Slave States and Free States in the 
Union were equal in number, and it 
became a cherished axiom in the South 
that this equilibrium must be preserved- 
But the tide of emigration, flowing 
steadily in one direction, instinctively 
avoiding the Slave States, soon gave 
the North a decided preponderance in 
population, and the territories of the 
Northwest, rapidly filling up, were ad-, 
ding new and free States to the nation-, 
al constellation. This unequal growth 
was balanced for a time by the purchase 
and annexation of territory on the 
southern border, wherein slavery was 
already established, thereby adding 
Louisiana, Florida and Texas to the 
number of Slave States. But the steady 
growth of the North continued, and the 
equilibrium could not be maintained, 
In 1850 California was admitted into 
the Union as a free State, after a most 
prolonged and vehement contest, in the 
course of which many fears were ex- 
pressed in the North, and many threats 
uttered in the South, of a dissolution of 
the Union, — for by this time the South 



*One of my earliest political recollections is 
that of a meeting convened in one of the north- 
ernmost States, to hear a Reverend gentleman 
lecture upom American Slavery, which meeting 
was violently dispersed by a mob of rowdies, 
the local peace officers refusing to interfere. 



'Carolina nullification doctrines were 
largely adopted by southern statesmen. 
All along, since 1820, the slavery ques- 
tion had been continually cropping up 
in Congress, causing exciting contro- 
versies* but in 1850 the battle raged 
more fiercely than ever before 1 he 
South strenuously resisted the admis- 
sion of another free State, unless she 
'received some equivalent; and she 
-finally accepted a most unrighteous 
, and odious Fugitive Slave Law as such 

The " compromise of 1850" was ac- 
cepted by the two great political par- 
ties-Democratic and Whig— as a 
"finality,*' not without protest, how- 
ever, from the Anti-Slavery section of 
the Whig party. Previous to this a 
portion of the Democratic party in the 
northern states, had separated from it, 
and were known as Free-Soilers. From 
'50 to '54 the odious features of the 
Fugitive Slave Law, the disturbances 
arising from attempts to enforce the 
law in Boston andCincinnatti, the pub- 
lication of Uncle Tom's Cabin, and 
other incidents, served to keep the 
question of slavery before the people of 
the North as the dominant topic of dis- 
cussion In 1854, the slavery question 
" finally settled" in 1850, was re-opened 
in Congress by Senator Douglas of 
Illinois, who offered to the South the 
removal from the national territories of 
all anti-slavery restrictions. Under 
the Constitution, as it then was, (not 
as it now is) each State could determine 
for itself the question of slavery within 
its own limits ; and the proposal was to 
give the people of each territory trie 
same nower. This measure was the 
beginning of the end." AH preceding 
contests were mild and placid compared 
with that which now convulsed the na- 
tion There was a general re-adjust- 
ment of political parties. The northern 
wino- of the Whig party disbanded, and 



its southern wing kept up but a feeble, 
straggling organization. In the North, 
three fourths or more of the ex-Whigs 
united with the Free-Soilers and about 
one third of the Democratic party to 
form the Republican party, based upon 
the principle of opposing the extension 
of slavery. The Democratic party re- 
tained its name, and a majority of its 
membership in the North, gathering to 
itself the remnant of the Whig party, 
and in the South had everything pretty 
much its own way. 

Douglas succeeded in his measure. 
The Congressional restrictions were re- 
moved, and it was to be left with those 
who should become residents of the 
national territories to determine wheth- 
er or no slavery should be tolerated 
therein. The northern people imme- 
diately organized societies to send emi- 
grants to the territories, in order that 
by their vote the introduction of slavery 
might be prevented ; and the southern 
people organized societies to send 
thither emigrants with their slaves to 
introduce and establish slavery. When 
these northern and southern emigrants 
met in the territories, violent collision 
and bloodshed was the natural result. 
The South found that the free state 
men in the territories would carry the 
day ; and then she took that step in ad- 
vance which proved the downfall of 
slavery. The southern people had 
been educated, by pulpit, press, and 
platform, into the very acceptable belief 
(coinciding, as it did, with their wishes 
and their pecuniary interests in human 
chattels, valued at four thousand mil- 
lions of dollars) that sla rery was in it- 
self right and beneficent ; and they now 
demanded that slavery should be ad- 
mitted as of right and pro 4 ected in 
every national territory, and they de- 
clared that any legislation, national or 
territorial, treating slavery as a wrong, 
and seeking to restrain it, would be an 



infringement upon their rights as citi- 
zens ; and they also declared that when- 
ever there was such infringement, the 
ties binding them to the Union would 
be dissolved. This advanced position 
of the South, together with John 
Brown's effort to end slavery at once 
by arousing the southern slaves to 
strike for their own freedom, added 
fresh fuel to a fire that was already at 
white heat. Douglas and his followers 
refused to accede to the southern de- 
mand, and, in consequence, in the 
eventful Presidential election of 1860, 
the Democratic party was split in twain 
upon this issue. 

In that election thiee propositions for 
disposing of the slavery question were 
submitted to the people :— 1. National 
protection of slavery in the territories ; 
2. National indifference to slavery in 
the territories ; 3. National prohibition 
of slavery in the territories. The South 
proposed the first, the northern wing of 
the Democratic party the second, and 
the Republican party the third. For its 
standard-hearer upon this issue, and 
its candidate for the office of President, 
the Republican party fixed its choice 
upon 

ABRAHAM LINCOLN. 
It has been rather the fashion to 
speak of Lincoln as 1 hough he were a 
■"happy accident," — one who, by the 
merest fortuitous chance, happened to 
be chosen by the people as their Presi- 
dent, and then, unaccountably to every- 
body, proved himself to be fitted for a 
post in which almost any other man 
would have failed. Some English news- 
papers spoke of him as a man who " for 
the most part of his life had followed 
manual employments." u The Revue 
des Deux Mondes said : "Mr. Lincoln 
was not one of those men who bring 
to the power with which they are in- 
vested a force and brilliancy acquired 
beforehand." And the Paris Siecle : 



"What was Lincoln before the suffra- 
ges cf his fellow citizens placed him at 
the head of the Republic ? A mechanic. 
Charged with the government of one of 
the greatest nations in the world, in a 
crisis the most terrible in its history, 
the ex-mechanic showed himself equal 
to the situation." B.:t any transat- 
lantic misconception or half-conception 
of him is wholly excusable when we 
remember that in New York City a 
leading member of the Athenaeum Club, 
who sought to do honor to Lincoln's 
memory eulogized him as "this untried 
lawyer of a western village." It is a 
tempting way of excusing one's own 
littleness to ascribe the greatness of 
ciiers to chance. We are all charmed 
(and harmed) by the fairy tales, where 
some rustic young hero, without special 
preparation or any training, by sheer 
good luck and the favouring genius of 
some kind fairy, surmounts all difficul- 
ties, subdues all foes, and overthrows 
in combat the ablest and most expe- 
rienced veterans. In real life these 
things don't happen. I grant you, the 
revelation of greatness may be the 
matter of a moment ; but greatness is 
attained only by long-continued, per- 
sistent, laborious effort. We shall quite 
miss the lesson of Lincoln's life if we 
fall intothe delusion that he had not,, 
by education, by training, by discipline, 
fai ly fitted himself for the task he had 
to perform. 

Education and Training. 
Lincoln was educated. What is the 
test of education? "We have, "says 
Pascal, "three principal objects in the 
study of truth,- one to discover it when 
w? see it. another to demonstrate it 
when we possess it, and the third and 
last to discriminate it from the false 
when we examine it." By what means 
soever a man reaches the result, he has. 
an educated mind if he has obtained 
this power of vision, power of demon- 



stration, and power of discrimination. 
If devoting the choicest years of ore's 
boyhood to the making of Latin verses 
educates a man to this, well and good ; 
yet only shallow-pated fools will insist 
that a course of Latin verse-making is 
the only means whereby one may be- 
come thus educated. Pre-eminently 
Lincoln did possess the power of vision 
— seeing clearly (not accidentally 
stumbling into) the true course to pur- 
sue; power of demonstration — causing 
others to see the same thing, (making 
due allowance for moral strabismus 
and color-blindness) ; and power of 
discrimination — with rarest sagacity 
avoiding being misled by the glare of 
any false lights. 

Lincoln entered upon the Presidency 
an educated man. His mother taught 
him to read and write. He had six 
months' schooling. While he was a 
young man he read the best books. 
There are two books in the world — the 
Bible and Shakespeare. With these he 
was something more than familiar ; he 
could repeat large portions of Shake- 
speare, and the Bible became so in- 
grained in his mind that its influence 
can be traced in every one of his 
speeches and state papers. Besides 
these two books, what is a third ? If 
Luther answer for us, it will be that 
book which was a special favourite 
with Lincoln — JEsop's Fables ; for Lu- 
ther ranked JEsop next to the Bible. 
For a fourth book we have, by common 
consent, Plutarch's Lives. In lieu 
thereof, and serving much the same 
purpose, Lincoln read the Life of 
Washington — a book frequently men- 
tioned by him as having greatly in- 
fluenced his own life. He had also the 
Life of Franklin and the Life of Henry 
Clay, the favourite political leader of 
his early manhood. These six books, 
together with the best extant commen- 
tary on the Bible — the Pilgrim's Pro- 



gress — he read over and over again r 
and he was a diligent student of the 
universal book of all Americans, — the- 
newspaper of the day. One mighn have 
sought far and long before finding ma- 
terial which would have better served 
in laying a foundation for Lincoln's 
education. The Bible gave him his 
moral creed — the Golden Rule — and 
largely contributed to form his style of 
speech; Shakespeare enlarged his 
views of life and humanity ; from 
iEsop and Pilgrim's Progress he learn- 
ed the rare secret of making the great- 
est truths plain to the simplest minds ; 
the lives of Washington, Franklin and 
Clay gave inspiration and hcpe, stimu- 
lus to self-exertion, and faith in the 
possibilities of his own powers ; and 
the newspapers of all sections 
and all shades of opinion (for he 
read all) put him in close sympathy 
with his own age and country, and 
made him familiarly acquainted with 
the conflicting interests, passions, pre- 
judices, hopes and aims of the people 
who were to be his helpers or antago- 
nists in life's battle. 

Lincoln was born into the ranks of 
workingmen. For his first score of 
years he had a workingman's expe- 
rience, — swinging the woodman's axe,, 
ploughing the prairies, boating on the 
Mississippi, — an experience not with- 
out value in contributing its share in 
the training that fitted him to guide 
the destinies of a nation whose ruling 
classes consisted, chiefly of working- 
men. When the surveyor of his coun- 
ty fell sick, he applied to Lincoln to 
carry on his work. Lincoln took his 
tools and his books, mastered his craft, 
and did the work. In the time of the 
Black Hawk Indian war Lincoln vol- 
unteered with others to form a com- 
pany of soldiers, and they chose him to 
be their Captain. He studied law. He 
became a " village lawyer," but soon 



was in request beyond his village lim- throughout the State, agitation was 
its, and when that new State of II li- universal ; for even the few who did 
nois had grown to be the fourth State not agitate for or against slavery, agi- 
in the Union, Lincoln had grown to be tated against agitation, 
the first lawyer in the State. He was It was a time of political ferment 
twenty-five years of age when his and turmoil, the disintegration of old 
neighbours sent him to the State Leg- political parties and the attempt to 
islature, and he was kept there as long harmonize heterogeneous elements in 
as he would consent to serve them, new combinations. It was a time of 
This gave him eight years' experience intense feeling and feverish excitement, 
as a legislator, and established his with not a little of untempered zeal, 
position as the recognised political whib a multitude of counsellors were 
leader of his party in Illinois. Four filling the air with their Babel of con- 
years thereafter he was sent to Wash- fusing voices. It was a time that call- 
ington, serving as member of Congress ed for the exercise of those same quali- 
for the term of two years, when he de - ties which enabled Lincoln to lead the 
dined re-election. people successfully through all the dis- 

His legislative experience in the tracting years of war ; and his cool 
State and National Capitals was, head, clear vision, conciliatory manner, 
doubtless, of much importance in the firmness for the right, and wise selec- 
training which prepared him for the tion of practicable means for maintain- 
great work of his life ; but of consider- ing the right, were largely instrumen- 
ably less importance than his unofficial tal in harmonizing discordant elements 
work, where he came in direct political and bringing order out of chaos. It 
contact with the people. The battle of was his to curb the impatient, to re- 
freedom had to be won in the hearts of strain the extravagant and visionary, 
the people before it could be won in to tone down excess of zeal, to convince 
legislative hall or on the crimson field the doubtful, to encourage the fearful, 
of war : and in no State was the politi- to embolden the timid, to find what 
cal battle waged more strenuously than would attract and unite all and repel 
in his own State of Illinois. Vermont, none. He saw clearly the one princi- 
t'ar to the northward, and South Caro- pie of right upon which all must stand 
lina, far to the southward, were States to make success worth striving for, and 
wherein political feeling was as in- the one practicable measure of state 
tense as elsewhere, but there was no policy upon which all must unite to 
exciting discussion. In Vermont the make success possible. He would not, 
opponents of slavery, and in South for the sake of success, compromise 
Carolina the advocates of slavery, had away what was vital and essential ; 
things all their own way. Illinois was nor would he, to gratify excited feeling, 
a border State ; in the upper portion the burden his cause with what was inr 
New England element predominated, timely, unnecessary, or overwrought. 
in the lower portion the Southern The service he rendered the cause of 
element, and in the middle por- freedom at this juncture was of the 
tion the two elements were about highest value; for, first, of all, it was 
equally distributed. Nowhere did needful that the people should have 
the contest against slavery pro- clearly defined to them what was es- 
duce greater excitement or fiercer sential and what was practicable. This 
discussion. From 1854, for six years, seemingly simple service required rare 



ability. So rare is such power that 
Plato says, " He who can properly de- 
fine and divide is to be considered a 
god." The ability Lincoln here mani- 
fested was not of sudden acquisition. 
All through life, as Lawyer and as 
Statesman, he had rigidly schooled 
himself until he had acquired the pow- 
er — s0 ver y seldom seen — of stating his 
own case without overstating it, and 
without understating that of his adver- 

InNortnern Illinois, where the Anti- 
Slavery feelingwas mostfervid, the peo- 
ple were accustomed tu gather in mon- 
ster mass meetings, by the fifty or hun- 
dred thousand, and with their proces- 
sions, their music and flags and ban- 
ners, to make grand political demon- 
strations. On such occasions they de- 
sired of a speaker nothing but that he 
should partake of and minister to the 
excitement of the people, and be but an 
eloquent echo of their own feelings. 
Few men could withstand the excita- 
tion of such a scene and the impulse to 
say what would be most acceptable to 
the multitude. In his " English Note- 
Books" Hawthorne has told us how al- 
most impossible it is not to yield to the 
influence of the moment, and say what 
the audience desire to have said, in or- 
der to " produce an effect on the in- 
stant ;" and he does not " quite see how 
an honest man can be a good orator." 
Of all the prominent Anti-Slavery lead- 
ers in the North, Lincoln seems to have 
been the onh one who was not, at some 
time or other, borne off his legs by his 
enthusiastic audience, and betrayed in- 
to foolish and extravagant declarations. 
It is true of Lincoln— of how few men 
is it true ?— that he did not go in 
speech where he had not already gone 
in thought. This would have marked 
him for a superi jr man anywhere, at 
any time ; especially so, therefore at a 
time when there were vociferating mul- 



titudes of men of that class who " think 
too little and talk too much." At these 
immense popular demonstrations, 
where the most exaggerated e.v 
sion was apt to receive the loudest ap- 
plause, Lincoln's utterances, somehow, 
seemed tame and disappointing. There 
was a certain craving for sensational 
statement and for unqualified denun- 
ciation of all opponents ; and Lincoln 
had nothing of the sort to give them. 
But when he met the peopje in their 
town halls, and would have before him 
a thousand auditors in a mood to listen 
calmly, he would quietly talk over the 
state of the nation with them, and pre- 
sent his points in that plain, self- 
evident way which, while not unduly 
exciting the feelings, would thoroughly 
convince the judgment. His political 
speeches were the most persuasive I 
ever heard. He was one of the few 
men whose speeches made votes. " How 
forcible are right words," was the men- 
tal comment while listening to him. 

Lincoln verifies the German saying, 
that " clear thinking makes clear 
speaking." His manner of speech is 
most admirable. It is atrial to one's 
temper to find many good-natured, 
weak-sighted critics apologizing for 
Lincoln's style. Let them note the 
fact — for it is noteworthy ami it is a 
fact- -that this man of the West, find- 
ing for himself such means and 
methods of culture as he could, had 
formed a style remarkably akin to that 
of Emerson, the man of highest culture 
in the East — facile princeps among the 
literary men of America. The style of 
each is plain, simple, direct, devoid of 
ornament, the force of what is uttered 
depending upon the thought itself and 
not upon any artificial collocation of 
sonorous polysyllables. Both exemplify 
the fact that the weightiest thoughts 
are best expressed in simplest words. 
Tnose who insist upon the special force 



10 



•of the short Saxon words of the lan- 
guage may cite many illustrations from 
Lincoln. One of his most powerful 
speeches was that at Springfield, open- 
ing the important contest of 1858 ; and 
it abounds in terse, short Saxon words. 
It opens : " If we could first know 
where we are and whither we are 
tending we coiild better judge what to 
do and how to do it." Lincoln adds : 
" ' A house divided against itself can- 
not stand. I believe the government 
cannot endure permanently half slave 
and half free. It will become all one 
thing, or all the other. Either the op- 
ponents of slavery will arrest the far- 
ther spread of it, and place it where the 
public mind shall rest in the belief that 
it is in the course of ultimate extinc- 
tion ; or its advocates will push it for- 
ward till it shall become alike lawful in 
all the States, old as well as new, 
North as well as South." After set- 
ting forth " what to do and how to do 
it" he concludes : " The result is not 
doubtful. We shall not fail ; if we 
stand firm we shall not fail. Wise 
counsels may accelerate, or mistakes 
delay it, but sooner or later the victory 
is sure to come." Elsewhere he says 
of slavery : " Because we think it 
wrong we propose a course of policy 
that shall deal with it as a wrong. We 
deal with it as with any other wrong, in 
so far as we can prevent its growing 
any larger, and so deal with it that in 
the run of time there may be some 
promise of an end to it." Seidell's 
aphorism. ''Syllables govern the 
world," will occur to the reader of Lin- 
coln. One cannot fail to notice how 
largo a proportion of one-syllabled 
words are found in his most memor- 
able utterances,- such as his Spring- 
field speech ; his letter to Greeley ; his 
second Inaugural (declared by the 
Westminster Review to be the most re- 
markable State paper known to his- 



tory) ; and his brief two minutes' speech. 
at Gettysburg, following Edward Ev- 
everett's eloquent two hours' oration — 
(which Everett would gladly have ex- 
changed for Lincoln's twenty lines) in 
which speech occurs the oft-quoted 
sentence where Lincoln expresses the 
hope that " Government of the people, 
for the people, by the people, may not 
perish from the Earth." 

In 1858 was fought the political bat- 
tle in Illinois which substantially de- 
termined the nature and the result of 
the national contest of 1860. Lincoln 
met Senator Douglas, the northern 
leader of the Democratic party, in sev- 
eral joint debates, where the questions 
at issu3 were discussed before the peo- 
ple. In these debates Douglas was 
compelled to disclose just how far he 
was willing to go in upholding slavery, 
while Lincoln clearly defined how far 
he believed he had the Constitutional 
right to go and intended to go in oppo- 
sing slavery. The debates were pub- 
lished throughout the land ; and the 
final outcome was that the Republi- 
cans cf the nation were attracted to the 
support of Lincoln, chose him for their 
champion, and accepted his definitions 
of their creed ; while the South with- 
drew from Douglas, dividing asunder 
the Democratic party and making cer- 
tain the election of Lincoln to the 
Presidency. 

The processes of education are va- 
rious. Let a man be concerned in pub- 
lic affairs for some thirty years in a 
place where all institutions are fixed 
and deeply-rooted ; where there is but 
little of the exciting stir and conflict of 
humanity ; where life runs quietly on 
in well-worn ruts : where all questions 
that arise are determined by routine 
and established custom ; where for a 
century one year is but the twin of 
every other year ; — and he might, by 
diligent study of the records of the great 



II 



conflicts of the past, so master the 
problems that concern mankind as to 
become a profoundly educated states- 
man. But let him be placed in a new, 
lusty, young State like that of Illinois, 
not yet fully reclaimed from the grasp of 
the red man, and all its institutions yet 
to receive definite form ; where the 
stir and the rush and the whirl of life 
are almost unprecedented ; where 
every year leaves far behind the land- 
marks of the former year ; where all 
questions are open questions, and 
nothing so fixed that it may not, upon 
discussion, be unfixed ; where all the 
problems in religion, politics, educa- 
tion and jurisprudence come up anew 
for decision, and are to be decided with 
regard to principle rather than to pre- 
cedent ; where the elements that make 
up society are many and diverse and 
actively antagonistic ; — let a man 
have, like Lincoln, thirty years of such 
experience, taking large part in mould- 
ing the growing institutions of the 
State, and (if he have the capacity to 
learn in such a school) it is he, disci- 
' plined by the actual conflict of life, 
rather than the one profoundly versed 
in the history and philosophy of human 
conflicts, who is best fitted to encounter 
any great and sudden crisis in human 
affairs where the problems for solution 
are alike new and difficult. 

I have wholly failed in my purpose, 
if it has not been shown that Lincoln 
entered upon the Presidency an educa- 
ted man, fairly trained and disciplined 
for his work ; that whatever of " force 
and brilliancy" he manifested in that 
high office he had "acquired before- 
hand ;'•■ and that it is not quite an ade- 
quate description of such a man to de- 
signate him as an "ex-mechanic," or 
as an " untried lawyer of a western 
village." True, there was a time when 
he had just entered upon the practice 
of law, — there was a time when he toil- 



ed with his hands for a livelihood,— 
and there was a time when he was a 
boy ; but it was not as ex-boy, or ex- 
mechanic, or ex-village lawyer, that 
the American people, in the ^erv crisis 
of their great political struggle, seeking 
for the ablest and trustiest leadership, 
fixed their choice upon Abraham Lin- 
coln. 

Personal Traits. 

It was not alone his political wisdom 
and ability that won for him, and ena- 
bled him to retain, the confidence of 
the people. The whole man was at- 
tractive to them. 

Lincoln was honest and sincere. 
Truth was the basis of his chracater, 
as it must be the basis of any charac- 
ter that shall endure. He was wholly 
free from any taint of Machiavel's 
maxim, that " the credit and reputa- 
tion of virtue are a help to man, but 
virtue itself a hindrance." His pro- 
fessed creed was his real creed. Long 
before he was named for the Presiden- 
cy the people of Illinois had knighted 
him, giving him the title " Honest." It 
is frequently said, — 

" An honest man's the noblest work of God," 
and it is generally believed that an 
honest lawyer is the rarest ; yet it was 
as lawyer, no less than as politician, 
that the appellation was bestowed. His 
colleagues at the bar used to say of him 
that he was "perversely honest." Di- 
plomatists, — accustomed to intricate, 
labyrinthine policies and '" wheels 
within wheels," — were at a loss what 
to make of such a man. His simple 
straightforward utterances were, to 
them, insoluble enigmas. One who 
was finding himself continually baffled 
by this transparent honesty insists] 
that Lincoln was the most cunning man 
in America. No, it was not cunning ; 
it was " the brave old wisdom of sin- 
cerity/' He was one of those 



12 



•■ Whose armour is his honest thought, 
And simple truth his utmost skill. 
The people's trust in Lincoln's honesty 
was never shaken. That anchor held, 
when so many other anchors seemed to 

give way. 

Lincoln was kind. His heart was 
tender as a woman's. He was habitual- 
ly considerate of others, and was gen- 
tle alike in word and deed. Throughout 
his life-long struggle in opposition to 
slavery with all his earnestness and 
zeal he had no unkind taunts, no bit- 
ter invective, no vituperation to pour 
forth upon the people of the South. 
''Sweetness and light" characterized his 
speech Yet he was not wanting in 
feelings of deep indignation ; and those 
feelings were never more fully aroused 
than by the recital of the privations en- 
dured by Union soldiers in Anderson- 
ville prison. Still, when he was vehe- 
mently urged to retaliate, he refused, 
saying,— V. I can never, never starve 
men like that." ' 

Lincoln was unassuming before men 
and humble before God. He did not 
depreciate himself, but he failed not to 
appreciate others. He was free from 
self-conceit. He held his mind open to 
suggestions from every side. He re- 
ceived all frankly, listened to all kindly 
and patiently, and judged all candidly. 
He was reverent and humble before 
Almighty God. He recognized a pow- 
er, higher than his own, fashioning 
events beyond man's control. He ac- 
knowledged that " Man proposes, ^but 
God disposes." " I confess plainly," he 
said. " that I have not controlled 
events, but events have controlled me." 
Fie bad nothing of the imperious spirit 
of Napoleon who, in the midst of bis 
career, vaunted,— " I propose and I dis- 
pose, also." 

Lincoln was firm He held to his 
creed, firmly. For the thirty years of 
his pur lie and political life in Illinois 



he maintained, without wavering, his 
fundamental political principles, that 
slavery was a wrong and that there 
was a constitutional method which 
could be adopted and should be adopt- 
ed to deal with it as a wrong. His was 
not a vacillating mind. In doubtful 
matters he deliberated carefully and 
long, sadly trying the patience of im- 
patient men, before (to use his own 
phrase) he "put his foot down ;" but 
when once it was put down it seemed 
almost immovable. It was, indeed put 
down so quietly, with such entire ab- 
sence of demonstration and blaster,, 
that few could realize how firmly Lin- 
coln held it there until they sought to 
move it. In a remarkable degree l;e 
exemplified the saying of Demosthe- 
nes : "The beginning of virtue is con- 
sultation and deliberation ; the perfec- 
tion of it, constancy." His firmness 
was nowhere more conspicuous than 
in retaining and sustaining his military 
and civil officers against the fierce 
clamour of detraction which would 
arise in the tempestuous hours of peril 
and disaster. Had his firmness not 
been of the highest quality, early in the 
war Grant and Sherman would have 
been dismissed from the army, and dur- 
ing the war Seward and Chase dis- 
carded from the Cabinet. The combi- 
nation of this firmness with Lincoln's 
other qualities has been forcibly stated 
by Motley :'* So much firmness with 
sucn gentleness of heart, so much logi- 
cal acuteness with such almost child- 
like simplicity and ingenuousness of 
nature, so much candor to weigh the 
wisdom of others with so much tenac- 
ity to retain his own judgment, were 
rarely before united in one individual."' 
Lincoln was a true gentleman. Some 
of the external signs of what is gentle- 
manlywill differ with differing coun- 
tries and ages ; and it happened that in 
the large, free, new, developing West 



13 



the conventional usages of so- 
ciety differed in very many mi- 
nor particulars from those of the 
more fully developed East. When 
Lincoln assumed the Presidency, it 
was discovered that his manners had a 
Western flavor ; and dilettanti critics 
were horrified to find that the new 
President was not careful to conform, 
in all particulars, to " that mere system 
of etiquette and conventionalisms in 
which small minds find their very 
being ;"* and he was set down as a 
raw, rough, unsophisticated" boor. Yet, 
in all the essential qualities, and in all 
the higher and finer qualities which 
constitute the true gentleman, Lincoln 
was the peer of any man he ever met. 
One pregnant fact, in illustration, will 
suffice : Frederick Douglass says that 
Lincoln is the only man of note in 
America, with whom he has had an 
hour's conversation, who did not in the 
course of the hour, somehow, in some 
way or other, remind him that he was 
of a different race. 

His Humour. 

Prominence must be given to Lin- 
coln's humour ; for it was one of the 
most prominent, and I think not the 
least valuable, of his characteristic 
traits. Humour enters into the make- 
up of the complete man. It is one of 
the elements of human greatness ; 
without it, something would be lack- 
ing. So it was justly held by Socrates 
that the great poet should be great in 
comedy no le*s than in tragedy, 
—that his greatness should com- 
prehend all sides of human life.. It 
is only your men of inferior grade who 
deride humour. Such were the French 
literary critics in the Voltairean age, 
who regarded Shakespeare simply as a 
"buffoon"; and such were the small 
politicians who made that same word 



"Frederick Robertson. 



"buffoon" express their entire compre- 
hension of Lincoln. That humour is 
not incompatible with loftiness of po- 
sition and greatness of character even 
so cynical a critic as Horace Walpole 
would allow. " A careless song," he 
says, " with a little nonsense in it, now 
and then, does not misbecome a mon- 
arch." And the historian, Motley, 
speaking of the apparent gaiety of Wil- 
liam the Silent in the darkest hours of 
his country's trials, says that those 
who censured this gaiety were " dul- 
lards who could not comprehend its 
philosophy." 

Perhaps we are all disposed to un- 
derestimate the value of Lincoln's ex- 
uberant humour ; to regard it rather as 
a defect, — as something detracting from 
his greatness, — as, in some way, lower- 
ing him from the sublime height which, 
we imagine, every great man should 
occupy. To conceive of a man as great, 
it seems necessary to keep him, some- 
how, at a great distance. Where and 
tiquity intervenes, distance in time 
aids our conception, and the humour of 
the great man does not belittle him in 
our estimation, — as instance Socrates 
Luther, Sir Thomas More, William >f 
Orange, Franklin. But, ordinarily, 
humour brings a man close to us, and, 
to some extent, tends to destroy the 
sense of greatness. He that laughs 
with me puts himself, in a manner, on 
my own level. " >"o man is a hero to 
his valet,"— That is, to one who knows 
him in undress ; and humour is the un- 
dress of the mind. Undoubtedly this 
humour of Lincoln did preclude such 
feelings of profound veneration as 
would arise from a sense of awful 
greatness and solitary grandeur ; but 
what he lost in veneration he more 
than gained in love. This love was of 
value inestimable. The whole question 
of success or failure in the great contest 
depended upon whether or no Lincoln 



14 



could keep the people with him, and all 
along, the people, finding that Lincoln 
did not hold himself aloof from them, 
steadfastly clung to him, even when the 
politicians were ready to desert him. I 
cannot doubt that his gentle, quiet, 
wise humour had no small influence in 
keeping him on good terms with the 
people. 

Humour is both spear and shield. 
With Lincoln, before he became Presi- 
dent, it was as the spear of Ithuriel, 
unmasking subtle fallacies at a touch. 
After he became President it was his 
shield. He interposed it for protection 
against the intermeddlers who felt a 
call to dictate the manner of govern- 
ing the nation. Not even Cromwell 
was so worried with the dictatorial ad- 
visings of those Puritan Ironsides of 
his, who proved so troublesome to his 
enemies in war and to himself in peace. 
Lincoln was not laggard in acknowl- 
edging the immense importance of the 
fact that the churches of the North 
were with him, that the religious con- 
science of the people was sustaining 
the Union armies ; yet, at times, he 
must have felt that he was paying a 
large price for this support, in endur- 
ing so many delegations of ministers — 
coming singly, or in pairs, or by the 
dozen — who thought they had a divine 
commission lo direct the President's 
course. To one group of ministers, es- 
pecially positive in announcing just 
what measures God wished him to 
adopt, Lincoln, gravely meditating 
upon their message, answered slow- 
ly : — " Well, gentlemen, it is not often 
that one is favoured with a delegation di- 
rect from the Almighty" His Emancipa- 
tion Proclamation was delayed, wisely 
and necessarily, until the right moment 
came. To wait, to bide the time of its 
coming, was a difficult task; for few 
possess the gift of patience, — few can 
jrealze that 



" To wait may be to do : 
Waiting won a Waterloo !" 

A minister, one of his most impatient 
friends, was urging Lincoln to imme- 
diate action. " Why not issue it at 
once?" "I have no right, until it be- 
comes a military necessity ; and it isn't 
that yet." Why must you wait ? Just 
call it a military necessity, and that 
will do." "Oh, said Lincoln, "that 
would do, would it ? Please excuse a 
very simple question ; but, — How many 
legs would a sheep have, calling the 
tail one ?" " Why, five, of course." 
"Oh, no ; it would rmly have four. 
Calling the tail a leg does not make it 
a leg." The minister took his leave to- 
ponder over his new lesson in political 
ethics. He was not the only one who 
left Lincoln's presence all the wiser for 
an interview with him. A large dele- 
gation from some clerical body visited 
him to give him cheer and sympathy ; 
and one of the ministers said, — ' 'Well, 
we have one great blessing ; I believe 
that the Lord is on our side." "Yes," 
replied Lincoln, " but there is some- 
thing more important than that." " I 
beg your pardon, Mr. President ; but 
perhaps you misunderstood my remark. 
I said that I believe the Lord is on our 
sice. " Yes ; but that is not the most 
important thing." "Why, what can 
be more important than that ?" " That 
we should be on the Lord's side." 

To Lincoln, personally, humour was 
of incalculable worth, because of its 
medicinal, restful, recuperative proper- 
ties. The four wearisome years drag- 
ged heavily on ; the weight of care and 
of woe resting upon him could hardly 
be upborne ; there were times when, as 
disasters came thick and fast, sleep 
fled from him, and he would exclaim, — 
"If there ia a .man out of bell that 
suffers more than I do, I pity him."" 
Without such aid as humour gave him 
—restoring elasticity to the mind, re- 



15 



lieving now and then the tension of the 
nerves, giving occasional brief respite 
to well-nigh exhausted powers, — I do 
not see how Lincoln could have en- 
dured it all. Does this seem at all 
strange ? Think of Luther, at the time 
of the Augsburg Conference— the criti- 
cal hour of the Reformation when Lu- 
ther felt that everything was at stake- 
busying himself with writing his elabo- 
rate account of a Congress of rooks, 
and adding—" This is a mere pleasan- 
try ; but it is a serious one and neces- 
sary to me in order to repulse the 
thoughts which overwhelm me.""" 
Lincoln as President. 
It was well that Lincoln was a full- 
grown man in the prime of his strength, 
when he entered upon his great office. 
He had need of all his resources. 
Everything was unsettled. The nation 
was drifting from its moorings. It was 
chaos cmne again. His Presidential 
oath—" to preserve, protect, and defend 
the Constitution"— had given him a 
place whereon to stand, and there he 
stood firmly and calmly amid all the 
confusion ; and when it was ascertain- 
ed thatthreats would not intimidate him, 
that rebellion in word and in formal 
resolution would not move him, then 
rebellion in act followed, and Fort 
Sumter took its place in history. 



*To me there is indescribable pathos in that 
touching scene in the Tower, between Sir 
Thomas More and his beloved daughter, Mar- 
garet. Each was to the other more than fond- 
est lover, and each was overwhelmed with sor- 
row in thinking of the other's sorrow. At last, 
after a long and cruel separation the doomed 
man was permitted to have a brief interview 
with his daughter. When she entered his cell, 
they embraced and wept in silence, neither 
being capable of uttering a word. At length, as 
they gazed fondly one upon the other, Sir Thom- 
as Moore said—" Why, Meg, you are getting 
freckled;" and Margaret adds in her Journal 
"Soe that made us bothe laugh.' What pathos 
is in the laughter which is but the repressed 
bubblings of tears of woe ! 



The task then devolving upon Lin- 
coln was' to put down that rebellion. 
As President he had his skilful military 
officers, trained by the government, 
but he found that many of them ivere 
disregarding the orders of the Com- 
mander-in-Chief, and were preparing 
to give him battle; he had a navy, 
but found national ships of war were 
being converted into rebel rams ; he 
had forts and arsenals, — but found that 
these were supplying strongholds and 
weapons to destroy the nation they 
were intended to defend. For a time, 
as Lincoln said, it was "impossible to 
tell whom to trust." At last, when all 
had taken position, it became manifest 
who were for the government, who 
wera against the government, and who 
were endeavouring to be or were pre- 
tending to be neutral. 

The North had greatly the prepon- 
derance in men and resources, and had 
it been united the contest world not 
have so wearily dragged its slow length 
along, but would have verified the 
prediction of a famous General 
who promised to make the war 
"short, sharp, and decisive." Indeed, 
there would have been no war. 
The Southerners never intended to pit 
their strength against the full strength 
of the North. Of course, they expected 
to do their part, (and they did it!) hut 
they relied not a little upon foreign aid, 
of which they professed to he very con- 
fident, and very much upon divisions 
in the North, of which they were alto- 
gether certain. 

The possible complications with for- 
eign powers was a danger to be avoid- 
ed with delicate tact and eare, hut it 
was the actual divisions in the North 
which made the task of Lincoln so ex- 
tremely difficult. His supporters in 
the election were prepared to support 
him in the war, though many of them 
were anxious rather to destroy slavery 



16 



than to preserve the nation. A consid- 
erable number who voted against Lin- 
coln were willing to sustain him as 
President provided the war for the 
Union was not made the pretext for a 
war against slavery. The majority of 
those who voted against Lincoln, in 
the North, were for peace at almost 
any price, and they persistently op- 
posed all measures looking to the vig- 
orous prosecution of the war ; while 
some were seeking every opportunity 
to give positive aid to the South. This, 
then, was what Lincoln had to do : 
while steering clear of foreign compli- 
cations, to so conduct the war as to 
unite in efficient combat against the 
South all the loyal elements of the 
North, and to keep the disloyal ele- 
ments quiescent. How formidable 
these disloyal elements were may be 
inferred from the fact that at one time 
they took possession of New York City, 
by mob violence, and held it for three 
days in defiance of the Government." 

In working out his task, if Lincoln 
could only have had the best conceiv- 
able men ! But he must needs take 
such as he could find, who, often, were 
not such as he could wish. Love of 
country, sense of right, loyalty to duty, 
were not wanting ; yet, with these, not 
seldom was there a large admixture of 
self-conceit, or overweening pride, or 



*In the third year of the war, the opposition 
candidate for Governor in the state of Ohio was 
Vallandingham, a bitter opponent of the war, 
and the most pronounced and obnoxious ot the 
northern sympathizers with the South. Brough 
defeated him bv 100,000 majority. I vividly re- 
call the exultant jubilations of the army infront 
of the sonthern lines at Chattanooga when the 
result was made known ; but I also remember 
that 1 was not so much impressed by the great 
majority Governor Brough ha I received, as 
with the significant and startling tact that 
150,000 citizens in that one Northern State had, 
h\ voting for Vallandingham, declared, in effect, 
their sympathy with the South, and their wish 
(d give up the contest. 



psrsonal ambitions, jealousies and ri- 
valries, or intemperate zeal, or rash in- 
discretion, or arrogant presumption. 
He took what seemed the best, and, 
with all their weaknesses and foibles, 
made the best possible use of them, so 
long as they were usable at all. The 
self-conceit seemed universal. Perhaps 
it was his own lack of it that fostered 
it in others. So quiet was he, so un- 
pretending, displaying none of those 
"feahers of ostentation" without which 
Bacon says " the fame of learning 
is slow," with no tone of imperiousness 
in his words, and with no air of con- 
descension in listening to the words of 
others, the officials at Washington 
were self-deceived in the President. 
Indeed, we are all the pitiful slaves of 
appearances. If the great man come 
not duly labelled, or appear not in liv- 
ery, how are we to know him ? True, 
they had Lincoln's speeches — of which 
the Leeds Mercury has well said that 
they " are a photograph of his charac- 
ter, overflowing with great 

thoughts and strong in manly sense ;" 
but they were too enamoured with the 
beauties of their own speeches to realize 
the calm strength and rare sagacity of 
the man who had uttered Lincoln's, and 
too much absorbed in the contempla- 
tion of their own greatness to compre- 
hend his. Evidently it was a time that 
called for great men. Tn such a crisis, 
at such a momentous epoch, it were 
a thousand pities if some one did not 
rise to the height of the occasion ; and 
since this undemonstrative man seem- 
ed to be doing nothing startling and 
astounding, each one of dozens of Gen- 
erals and Statesmen began to feel that 
he was the man for the hour. General 
Fremont, in military command at the 
West, undertook the role of political 
dictator, and General McClellan, in 
military command at the East, that of 
political censor, tutor and guide to the 



17 



President, while every one of his Cabin- 
et Ministers was quite willing to re- 
lieve Lincoln of the helm. In his own 
quiet way he gave them to understand 
their relative positions. He received and 
he sought, counsel and advice from all ; 
he heard attentively and considered 
carefully ; yet he had to say, — " In the 
end the decision must rest with me ;" 
and they all learned in time, somewhat 
slowly and reluctantly, that the decis- 
ion did rest with him. 

I feel how hopeless is the task to 
condense into a few sentences the sub- 
stance of a volume — to depict the em- 
barassments, perplexities, trials, disap- 
pointments, misunderstandings, and the 
ten thousand difficulties which con- 
tinually beset the President, amid a 
hubbub of clamorous and distracting 
voices, censorious, distrustful, and dic- 
tatorial. However, through it all Lin- 
coln kept his head ; and he kept his 
faith in God and his faith in 
man, though his faith in men often 
failed. The great difficulty lay 
in the great diversity of sentiment 
among those who supported his gov- 
ernment. Many of one class were hot. 
rash and impatient ; many others, of 
another class, lukewarm, timid and 
hesitating. Lincoln cm Id dispense 
with neither and he displeased both. 
" At first he was so slow that he tired 
out all those who see no evidence of 
progress but in blowing up the engine ; 
then he was so fast, that he took the 
breath away from those who think 
there is no safety while there 
is a spark of fire under the boil- 
ers."* Few, now, will withhold the 
meed of praise from that calm, patient, 
wondrously wise man, the true heart- 
ed, strong-hearted, clear-headed, cool- 
headed man, the man " of iron brow and 
heart of gold," who piloted the ship of 



^Lowell, in North American Review, 1864. 



state safely through its dangers, stand- 
ing always firm and unmoved, unco.m- 
plainingly receiving sneers and dis- 
trust and censure where he had looked 
for sympathy and confidence and ap- 
proval. We praise the pilot, now ; but 
how greatly was he misjudged at the 
time. The desired haven was evidenl 
to all ; and to many the one wise and 
essential thing was to keep up full 
head of steam and push forward per- 
sistently at the highest pressure, hold- 
ing a rigid course, straight and direct 
for the point of destination. So they 
thought Lincoln heedless and supine 
when he was but waiting for the dense 
fog to lift, and that he was departing 
from his course when he was but 
tacking. For it was not plain sailing. 
All along it was a " dim and 
perilous way." All along, on 
every side were threatening reefs, 
and the cnannel was not easily 
found, and, when found, at times 
so shallow that again and again and 
again we seemed to hear the grating ot 
the keel upon the rocks. 

The Emancipation Proclamation. 
The great fact of the Presidency of 
Abraham Lincoln is, his Emancipation 
Proclamation. Lincoln as President, in 
time of peace, would have had not the 
remotest pretence of auth irity for is- 
suing it ; as Commander-in-Chief, in 
time of war, he had authority ; 
— that is, whenever, to secure success 
in war, it should become a military ne- 
cessity, then it would be constitution- 
ally lawful. So long as its effect would 
have been to completely divide the 
North, making rebellion successful and 
slavery perpetual, it was a military 
necessity not to issue it. The great 
majority of those who censured his 
slowness of movement acknowledge 
now that his delay was a wise delay. 
and that his cautious steps prelnriin- 



18 



nary to the final issuing of the Procla- 
mation, were necessary to so effectual- 
ly consolidate public sentiment in sup- 
port of it, that it should not fail of its 
purpose. Lincoln felt it to be sublime- 
ly right, though issued as a " war 
measure ;" and in the memorable con- 
cluding sentence of the Proclamation 
he places its righteousness in the fore- 
front : 

'" And upon this, sincerely believed 
to be an act of justice, warranted by 
the Constitution, upon military ne- 
cessity, I invoke the considerate judg- 
ment of mankind, and the gracious fa- 
vor of Almighty God." 

By this Proclamation, affecting 
3,120,000 slaves within the lines of the 
rebellion, and by an Amendment to the 
Constitution proposed and carried by 
the supporters of Lincoln affecting 
830,000 other slaves, America became 
free America, and, in consummating 
this sublimest event of the century, 
they who wrought the deed so shatter- 
ed human slavery throughout the 
world that it must speedily fall, never 
more to rise and curse the Earth. The 
fact that, with the war, slavery in 
America came to an end, is patent to 
all ; but with regard to the motivesand 
purposes, as touching slavery, of the 
parties to. the war, there is in many 
minds a very hazy and confused idea. 

It is said : "In entering upon the 
war, Lincoln and the North did not in- 
tend, while putting down the rebellion, 
to put an end to slavery at the same 
time." True. It is also said : "There- 
fore Lincoln and his adherents deserve 
no more credit for the extinction of 
slavery than do Jefferson Davis and 
his adherents." Not true. The whole 
matter admits of simple statement in 
few words : The election of Lincoln 
was the provocation to the rebellion. 
Lincoln, ami those whose votes elected 
him, purposed to so use the national 



authority, within constitutional lines, 
as to limit and restrict slavery. The 
North believed and hoped, and the 
South believed and feared, that if this 
policy were persisted in, slavery would 
" in the run of time" cease to be. In 
electing Lincoln the Republican party 
did not expect and did not intend the 
immediate extinction of slavery ; it did 
expect and did intend the ultimate ex- 
tinction of slavery. The South having 
lost the political battle, which was 
fought solely upon the slavery ques- 
tion, then tendered the gage of war. 
The North could have avoided war in 
either one of two ways : it could have 
given up the Union, and parting from 
the South could have formed a nation 
wholly freed from slavery ; or it could 
have saved the Union intact, without 
war, by surrendering the fruits of its 
political victory and withdrawing all 
opposition to slavery. The North 
would do neither ; and entered upon 
the war with a two-fold purpose, — that 
the nation should continue to be a 
nation, and so continue that in time 
it might become a free nation. The 
election of Lincoln was the culminating 
point of a long contest extending over 
many years. The war was a continu- 
ance of that contest — being, as Lincoln 
phrased it, an "anpeal from the ballot 
to the bullet." The creed of Lincoln, 
the representative man of the North, 
was none other than that of John 
Brown, whose creed was this : "I be- 
lieve in the Golden Rule and the De- 
claration of Independence," — the latter 
phrase meaning the right of every man 
to " life, liberty and the pursuit of hap- 
piness." John Biown thought to 
realize the creed at once, violently, by 
a slave insurrection ; Lincoln, in the 
course of 'time, by peaceable and con- 
stitutional methods. The Almighty 
made use of John Brown and Abraham 
Lincoln in accomplishing the destruc- 



19 



lion of slavery, but by a method not 
proposed by either. Lincoln yielded to 
the power higher than his own, and 
with trembling joy grasped the great 
opportunity God placed within bis 
reach to effect in the present that which 
had been his great hope for the distant 
future. The purpose of the North, the 
purpose of the South, and the overruling 
power of God. are clearly and admira- 
bly set forth in Lincoln's second Inau- 
gural address. I quote two or three 
paragraphs : — 

"All knew that this interest (slavery) was some 
how the cause of the war. To strengthen per- 
petuate and extend this interest was the object 
for which the insurgents would rend the Union 
even by war, while the Government claimed no 
right to do more than to restrict the territorial 
enlargement of it. 

Neither party expected for the war the mag- 
nitude or the duration which it has already at- 
tained. Neither anticipated that the cause of the 
conflict might cease with or even before the con- 
flict itself should cease. Both looked for an 
easier triumph and a result less fundamental and 
astounding. 

Both read the same Bible and pray to the same 
God, and each invoke His aid against the 
other. It may seem strange that any men should 
dare to ask a just God's assistance in wringing 
their bread from the sweat of other men's faces ; 
but let us judge not, that we be not judged. The 
prayers of both could not be answered. Thai of 
neither has been answered fully. The Almigh- 
ty has his own purposes. ' Woe unto the world, 
because of offences, for it must needs be that 
offences come ; but wee to that man by whom 
the offence cometh " If we shall suppose that 
American slavery is one of these offences, which 
in the providence of God must needs eome, but 
which, having continued through His appointed 
time, He now wills to remove, and that he gives 
to both North and South this terrible war as the 
woe due to those by whom the offence came, 
shall we discern therein any departure from 
those Divine attributes which the believers in a 
living God always ascribe to Him ? 

Fondly do we hope, fervently do we pray, that 
this mighty scourge of war may soon pass away. 
Yet, if God wills that it continue until all the 
wealth piled by the bondsman's two hundred and 
fifty years of unrequited toil shall be sunk, and 
until every drop of ' blood drawn with the lash 
shall be paid with another drawn with the sword, 
— as was said three thousand years ago, so, still, it 
must be said, — 'The judgments of the Lord are 
true and righteous altogether. ' " 



Estimate of Licoln. 

As there seems to have been at on© 
time in England a strange misconcep- 
tion of the g-eat war, — even Carl vie 
putting it aside as but "the burning of a 
dirty chimney,"— so there was gross 
misconception of the character of Lin- 
coln, as the columns of the Times and of 
Punch would testify. At the close of his 
career he began to be more truly 
prehended and it was but the expres- 
sion of the thought of very many when 
a prominent English Newspaper said 
that Lincoln "will live in the hearts 
and minds of the whole Anglo-Saxon 
race as one of the noblest examples of 
that race's highest qualities." And 
when all the clouds and mists that 
have obscured the man, or given dis- 
torted views of him, shall have passed 
away, some Englishman will arise to 
produce a portrait of Lincoln that shall 
endure, and find a place not lower than 
that of Washington or Franklin. In 
fiction Dickens has cleverly sketched, 
in his Elijah Pogra.ni, -a western poli- 
tician,— the littleness that often struts 
and swells in pompous garb and as- 
sumes a bombastic tone. It is left to a 
nobler pen than that of Dickens for 
does not Rafaelle rank Hogarth ? to 
portray, in history, the greatness that 
appeared in almost rustic attire, rti 
and unassuming, in the person of Lin- 
coln, the western statesman. 

How thoroughly English are many 
of the best things in his cuaracter. In 
steadfastness of purpose, in persistence 
of effort, in pluck, in standing firmly on 
his own legs, is he not what all English- 
men respect? In his subduednee 
tone, in his freedom from all rant and 
bluster, in his words, that do not go be- 
yond his matured thought, and in his 
deeds that do not lag behind his ut- 
tered words, does he not appeal to what 
is best and most characteristic in Eng- 
lish character ? The first English 



20 



poet of the century, i n his poem " The 
Happy Warrior," has depicted the ideal 
Englishman. Read it ; for there is not 
a single trait that Wordsworth has de- 
lineated which is not exemplified in 
Lincoln. When English critics would 
bestow highest praise, they are wont to 
quote the famous couplet wherein Sir 
John Denham likens the noblest char- 
acter to the river Thames : 
" Though deep, yet clear ; though gentle, yet not 

dull ; 
Strong, without rage ; without o'erflowing, full." 

To whom can these lines be applied 
with more complete appropriateness 
than to Lincoln ? Punch was not in 
his best mood when he devoted himself 
to the caricature of such a man ; but 
how grandly did Punch strive to make 
amends, when, along with all that is 
noblest and worthiest of earth, he took 
his place among the mourners over the 
murdered body of this great and good 
man : 
"Beside this corpse, that bears for winding-sheet 

The Stars and Stripes he lived to rear anew, 
Between the mourners at his head and feet, 

Say, scurril-jester, is there room for YOU ? 

" Yes, he had lived to shame me from my sneer, 
To lame my pencil and confute my pen; 

To make me own this hind of princes peer, 
This rail-splitter a true-born king of men. 

" My shallow judgment I had learned to rue, 
Noting how to occasion's height he rose ; 

How his quaint wit made home-truth seem more 
t rue ; 
How, iron-like, his temper grew by blows ; 

" How humble, yet how hopeful, he could be ; 

How in good fortune and in ill the same ; 
Not bitter in success, nor boastful he, 

Thirsty for gold, nor feverish for fame. 

" He went about hi^ work such work as few 
Ever bad laid on head and heart and hand — 

As one who knows, where there's atasktodo, 
Man's honest will must Heaven's goodgrace 

command." 

But for some rare peerless charac- 
teristics in Lincoln we seek his exem- 



plar not in England nor in America; 
only in Galilee. There alone do we 
find— and we find in ineffable perfection 
— a prototype of patient endurance of 
contumely without retaliation, and an 
all-pervading charity that excludes 
every feeling of revenge. For such 
gentleness with such power, for such 
forbearance with such provocation, for 
such forgiveness for such wrongs, we 
shall not rest in our search through 
history until we have gone back some 
Eighteen Hundred years. The spirit 
of the man breathes in those golden 
words which form the fitting close of 
the remarkable utterances in his sec- 
ond Inaugural : 

" With malice toward none, with 
charity for all, with firmness in the 
right as God gives us to see the right, 
let us strive on to finish the work we 
are in, to bind up the nation's wounds, 
to care for him who shall have borne 
the battle and for his widow and or- 
phans, to do all which may achieve 
and cherish a just and lasting peace 
among ourselves and with all nations." 

In America the common people and 
the soldiery loved Lincoln with a love 
unparalled in history. At Washington 
there was no lack of censure and ad- 
verse criticism, but with the people at 
large there was unshaken confidence. 
They found in Lincoln all that was 
best in themselves, and they trusted 
him who trusted them. And when he 
was stricken down, the blow fell upon 
millions of households, and the people 
mourned, each one as though he had 
lost his dearest, best beloved, most in- 
timate friend. The world had learned to 
love Lincoln, too ; and messages came 
across the Atlantic from many an Eng- 
lish home and many an Alpine cot- 
tage, that the loss of America was felt 
to be the loss of mankind. The name 
and the fame of Lincoln is not for one 
country alone ; \'<)v " he leaves," says 



21 

M. Prevost Paradol, the eminent they find in him something pecu- 

French journalist, " to every one liarly American ; and this is nowhere 

in the world to whom liberty so worthily expressed as in the nobl< 

and justice are dear, a great re- lines of James Russell Lowell who, I 

membrance and a pure example." think, will sometime be recognized as 

Still his countrymen claim that first of American poets : 

"Forgive me if from present things I turn 
To speak what in my heart will beat and burn, 
And hang my wreath on his world-honoured urn. 

Nature, they say, doth dote, 

And cannot make a man 

Save on some worn-out plan, 

Repeating us by rote : 
For him her Old World moulds aside she threw, 
And choosing sweet clay from the breast 

Of the unexhausted West 
With stuff untainted shaped a hero new, 
Wise, steadfast in the strength of God and true. 

How beautiful to see 
Once more a shepherd of mankind, indeed, 
Who loved his charge, but never loved to lead ; 
One whose meek flock the people joyed to be, 

Not lured by any cheat of birth, 

But by his clear-grained human worth. 

They could not choose but trust 
In that sure-footed mind's unfaltering skill, 

And supple-tempered will 
That bent like perfect steel to spring again and thrust. 
******* 

Great captains, with their guns and drums, 

Disturb our judgment for the hour ; 
But at last silence comes : 
These all are gone, and, standing like a tower, 
Our children shall behold his fame, 

The kindly-earnest, brave, foreseeing man, 
Sagacious, patieut, dreading praise, not blame, 

New birth of our new soil, the first American." 



BRAHAM LINCOLN. 



By GEO. HICKS, 
Late Major (Brevet Colonel) 96th Illinois, Vol. Infantry. 



Kingston : 

Printed at the Educational Supply Company. /6 King Street. 



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